The Chatter for Sunday, Dec. 29

Dennis Yslas of Fort Worth, who bought a present that did not arrive via U.P.S. in time for Christmas. U.P.S. attributed a problem with late packages to a short holiday shopping season, a rise in online shopping and bad weather.

Quinn Loftis, a writer of young-adult paranormal romances, talking about new technology that can analyze people’s e-book reading behavior, including how fast they read a book and whether they finished it.

Tony Zielinski, an alderman who represents the Bay View district in Milwaukee. The city has begun a pilot program to repurpose cheese brine for use in keeping roads from freezing, mixing the dairy waste with traditional rock salt as a way to trim costs and ease pollution.